The Secret Inside Me

Chapter 1

    Magnolia Springs, Alabama. Population: 804. I see that sign everywhere I go. Near my school, on our town billboard where all the activities for the communities are. Even on our newspapers. I always wondered why we were such a small populated town, it was beautiful, very quiet and relaxing.The sun was always shining, and everywhere you walked there was always a view of the ocean. You would think we would get more visitors, but our tourist traffic has slowed down significantly. I thought about this as I raced around the track at my highschool. It was track season and my parents forced me to tryout since they had decided that I needed to be in a sport every season to keep up appearances. Beads of sweat broke out along my hairline as I practiced for our up and coming track meet, it was mid afternoon and already felt like a hundred degrees outside. It's not like I wasn't fit, I had been taking martial art classes since I was five years old, I was always top of my class, advanced in most fights, and a very fast learner. It never made sense to me. I was a slim girl with a bigger waist but my stomach stayed tight, I was only about five foot four with crimson red hair. I liked the way I looked but my parents thought different. They were the perfect couple, my mom had almost silver colored hair with hazel eyes, and my dad had blonde hair and bright blue eyes. They were both very fit, worked out every morning, only ate food that came from the ground and thought they were flawless. I never looked anything like them, but I never really thought much of it. They hated that I wasn't perfect like them, that they had a flawed daughter. I didn't like to think that they looked down on me because i'm not the perfect daughter they wished for. I had never been welcomed anywhere I went, I was always an outcast, that was until I started school. Everyone thought I looked so cool, they wanted bright red hair like me, or bright green eyes like me. I never understood it. As soon as I finished running on the track I went back to the gym to shower I had decided to skip gym class,my teacher didn't seem to care, he always let me off easy. I had to get work done for English anyway. The class I dreaded oh so much. I had a ton of homework that I had procrastinated on, so I decided it was time to get it done. So off to the library I went.
After about an hour I decided to head to english so I could get the class over with as soon as possible. My teacher, Mrs. Pennington, knew more about how to smack her gum and file her fingernails than actually teaching her class. The reason I dreaded that class the most though is because of the one girl who thinks she owns the school, Lindy Stanton happened to be in that same class and she knew how to get under my skin, Every. Single. Time. Well at least, she used to.  The most popular and "prettiest" girl in school. Everyone loves her and wants to be her friend, except for me. Lindy and I used to be best friends up until freshman year when she lost all her weight and her acne miraculously disappeared, however, I gained some weight and she decided I wasn't good enough to be friends with. So I found my own friends and went my own way. However, that didn't stop her from terrorizing us every chance she got. As soon as I sat in my seat Lindy decided to yell at me from across the room,
"I thought you and your loser friends were too embarrassed to come here anymore." The week before, she had decided to embarrass us in front of the whole school by taking our underwear from our gym lockers and hanging them all over school, little did she know, not much bothered me anymore, I had become used to her little antics. However, for the sake of me and my friends I'd decided that I had had enough,
" you know what Lindy, just because you put a whole bunch of plastic in your body does not mean you get the right to try and bully everyone else who isn't pretty or skinny enough for you. She decided to shut her mouth on that one and the whole class went quiet.
This class couldn't end quick enough with her staring daggers into my back for the rest of the class period. As soon as the bell rang I was out of that class and running to my car as quick as possible, Lindy didn't get the chance to catch up to me. When I got to my car my friends, Iris and Logan were waiting there for me, guess they heard what happened in my english class already. News travels fast in a small town. I hadn't even had a chance to open my car door before they started bombarding me with questions, Iris spoke first.
"What was it like? Finally standing up to Lindy? You have always been the tough one of the group, I would have been terrified." Iris was the kind of person who tried to show everyone how strong she was but on the inside she was scared, a lost puppy trying to find her way. One of the reasons why we were so close. She was always the positive one trying to brighten someone's day.
"I heard she looked like she was about to rip your head off when class ended. Is that true?" Logan said with a chuckle, she was the kind of person who didn't care about drama. I just wanted school to end so she could finally get on with her life, out of both Iris and I she was the smartest one. Took all AP classes never got below an A her whole entire life and applied to Brown University and got in her Junior year of highschool. She was also a year older than me and Iris. We finished talking, as soon as I finished answering all of their questions, I headed home.
I made it home just in time for my parents to yell at me, asking me, " why did I speak to Lindy the way I did and she never did anything to me why would I do that to her." I decided to ignore them and go straight to my room to continue to talk to Iris and Logan.
"Did you hear about the new guy who starts tomorrow?" Logan asked
    "What new guy? We have enough people in our school. I just find it weird that we are getting a new guy so close to the middle of the school year." Iris said.
"Don't you guys find it even weirder that we are getting a new kid at all, we haven't had a new person at our school in years." I stated.
Logan was the next person to talk, "Do you guys know what he looks like?"